


Pride (It Goeth Before the Fall)

by RobinsonsWereHere



Series: Interpretations of Silence [1]
Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explosions, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Guilt, Misplaced Guilt, Mother-Daughter Relationship, deaf!Iris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsonsWereHere/pseuds/RobinsonsWereHere
Summary: Set during Psych The Movie. When Karen and the gang go after Iris, they defeat Alison Cowley, but not her whole plan. Iris can't get free, and they can't stop the bomb from going off. Now it's up to Karen, with her motley crew supporting her, to save her daughter and get everyone out alive.
Relationships: Iris Vick & Karen Vick, Juliet O'Hara & Karen Vick, Karen Vick/Richard Vick
Series: Interpretations of Silence [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569124
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Pride (It Goeth Before the Fall)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So excited for this fic (and this series)! Big thank you to Fox, my lovely sensitivity reader and semi-beta. Couldn't have done it without you!

Iris knows she should tell her mom about the shoplifting-- if nothing else, she’s putting Juliet in an uncomfortable position by asking her to keep it a secret. But she’s not going to steal anything else, ever, and she’s absolutely done with those girls. Plus, if she’s honest with herself… she doesn’t want to see the disappointment on her mother’s face.

When her phone rings, she answers it, and flatly shoots down the requests from the girls she now knows never really liked her. Her voice doesn’t even shake, and she’s proud.

That pride lasts a full three minutes. Before she knows it, she’s being drugged and probably kidnapped by a weird british guy.

Oh, yeah. She really should have told her mom about the shoplifting.

\---

The first thing Karen notices upon arriving home from work is that her front door is unlocked. She’s been teaching Iris to lock it for years, and yet…

“Iris?” she calls, stepping into the foyer. “Honey, haven’t I asked you to lock the door when you’re home alone?”

No response.

Karen moves more slowly now, quieting her footsteps by instinct. One hand drifts to her holstered gun before she even realizes it. When she listens, she realizes the house is silent… too silent. Even when she shuts herself in her room to chat with friends, Iris makes noise. There’s no noise now.

She doesn’t even make it through the kitchen before she finds her answer. There’s a sheet of nice paper on the table-- high quality, thick, maybe watercolor. It’s ripped at the edges, though, showing only a short note written in dark ink.

_Want her back? Catch us if you can… be at fisherman’s wharf by 11pm tonight, and bring Juliet O’Hara._

Karen stares at it, trying to glean every bit of information she can. The time and place, yes, but also the handwriting, the type of paper, the shining black ink.

The shining black ink.

Shining.

Against her training and her better judgement, Karen reaches out to touch the note. When she drags a finger over the beginning of the message, it smears. Her finger comes away sticky and black.

The note hasn’t even been on the table long enough for the ink to dry. Two minutes earlier, one green light instead of red, and Karen might have been able to save her daughter.

Karen allows herself one minute to slump into a dining chair, drop her head into her hands, and fear for Iris’s safety, for her life. Then, she picks herself back up and grabs the note.

She has under five hours to be ready to save Iris… time to get started.

\---

Iris shivers in the chilly, misty air, but she’s shaking more from fear than from cold. There are three people in the boat with her-- a man steering, a woman holding Iris in a painful grip, and another woman who doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all. That woman, with her cold eyes and calm smile, scares Iris most of all.

“Oh, are you crying?” The woman holding Iris asks, her voice too sweet. “Poor little girl. You want your mommy?”

In fact, Iris is crying only because the saltwater mist stings her eyes. Of course, with a gag in her mouth, she can’t explain that.

“You’d better hope your mom comes,” the lady continues. “Otherwise things will not go well for you.”

Iris knows she’ll come. The only thing she’s scared of is what might happen when she does.

\---

Karen paces her living room as the phone rings in her ear. She can’t sit still, not now, but she’s still got hours until she can _do_ anything. Waiting frustrates her at the best of times, but now…

O’Hara finally answers the call. _”Chief, we’re so close, he just barely got away, give me-”_

“The bastard took my daughter, O’Hara,” Karen says flatly. “He wants you and me, at the docks, eleven o’clock tonight. I don’t have to tell you this is unofficial business.”

There’s a gasp on the other end. _”Karen, I am so sorry--”_

“Be at my house at nine.” With that, she hangs up. Her eyes immediately stray to the clock.

It’s six fifty-three.

Grumbling to herself, Karen heads for her safe. She’s gonna need a lot of guns.

\---

Karen plans to leave at ten, meeting O’Hara at the dock before ten-thirty. They’d discussed plans and layouts earlier, but ultimately decided to arrive separately. Karen will go first, and, if everything is clear, Juliet will meet her there five or ten minutes later.

At ten minutes to ten, her phone rings. It’s Richard.

_Damnit, damnit, damnit._

“Richard,” she answers, her voice calm as always. “How’s Los Angeles? Did the meeting go well today?”

_”It went as well as it could’ve gone, I guess. Sorry to call so late, but dinner ran long. Is Iris in bed yet?”_

Karen sits down, taking a deep breath. “Iris… Iris has been kidnapped.”

_”What? Karen, why was that not the first thing you said upon answering the phone!? What do you mean, kidnapped?”_

“Well,” she sighs, looking at her watch, “there’s a case going on that got personal and I was just too damn slow and I have ten minutes until I have to leave for fisherman’s wharf.”

_”Holy shit,”_ her husband says. _”Okay, I’m getting on the next plane home.”_

“No, Rich, I’ll call you,” Karen protests, albeit weakly.

_”Karen, I want to be there when you get her back. And if you don’t--”_

“I will,” she insists. The alternative is too terrible to fathom.

_”If you don’t, I want to be there for you.”_

Karen doesn’t say anything.

_”For better or for worse, Karen.”_

She sighs. “You don’t come anywhere near the wharf, alright? If you land without hearing from me, go home and wait for me to call you.”

_”Got it, Karen. Keep me updated?”_

“I’ll do my best.” She glances at the clock again. “Rich, I have to go.”

_”Stay safe, Karen. Keep Iris safe. I love you.”_

Karen swallows hard. “I love you too.”

\---

She won’t lie; she’s more than slightly unnerved when Yin’s apprentice reveals herself. Perps who have spent years behind bars planning revenge are never good, and the Yin/Yang killers always send shivers down her spine. But Karen is more determined to find Iris than scared of Allison, so even as Strode rambles on, she scans the area.

According to Guster, there’s a suspicious looking doorway a few yards to her left. Cheesecloth may not be a very strong lead, but it’s the best she has.

When the high stakes hide-and-seek game begins, Karen runs straight for the half-covered doorway.

\---

Iris has been crying on and off in the many hours she’s been tied up near the bomb, but when her mom appears, the sobs come again as if fresh.

“Oh, Iris,” Karen says, in a sort of desperate voice Iris hasn’t heard before. “I’m so sorry, honey, I’m gonna get you out of here, how do I get in?”

Iris struggles a bit, trying to look toward the sign. Her mom finds it soon enough. 

“I’ll be right back, Iris,” she says. “I’m coming right back. I’ll find the key and get you out of here, you hear me?”

Iris nods, and Karen stands up, but pauses before leaving. She reaches through the bars, though of course, with a full six feet between them and Iris bound and gagged, they can’t reach each other.

“I love you,” she says.

Iris starts crying again as she watches her walk away.

\---

Karen is on high alert as she jogs through the halls. Even though she’s focusing solely on rescuing Iris, she passively takes in other information as well.

The tall guy is doing sword tricks. Shawn and Gus will be fine; they can stall. It doesn’t look like they’re in any real danger, anyway.

Further down the hall, a crash of glass breaking draws her attention. She starts toward it, reaching for the gun she doesn’t have. When she sees Cowley grappling with O’Hara, she almost dives in-- surely Cowley has the key on her-- but yelling from another room distracts her.

Juliet has beaten this woman once before, but Henry is long out of practice, and Strode is a goddamn ME. Neither of them are going to last long against a serial killer.

Cursing under her breath, Karen turns from the doorway and races across the hall.

\---

Iris has never seen her mom scared before. It looks wrong, to see her so solemn and tense, nearly shaking, fear visible in her eyes. 

She struggles harder, because if she can get her hands out of the ropes she can tear out the gag and tell them the code. But the ropes are tied so tight that she can barely feel her fingers, and the bomb is ticking down. There’s not enough time.

“O’Hara, get out of here,” Karen says, and she stops focusing on the bomb and looks Iris straight in the eye.

_Mom,_ Iris wants to say. _Mom, please, I don’t want to die._

In a perfect world, she would be strong enough to get free. She would explain the code to them, and hope one or the other knew the date. They would defuse the bomb and unlock the cell and her mom would free her and hug her and promise her she was safe.

This is not a perfect world.

Iris can’t see the countdown on the bomb, but she knows from the expressions of the adults that it’s too little time. Juliet hesitates, hovering close behind Karen even though she could save herself if she started running now. Iris stares helplessly at her mom, desperately hoping that she’ll pull off some almost magic rescue in the nick of time.

She doesn’t.

“I love you,” Karen says.

That’s the last thing Iris hears as the room goes up in flames.

\---

The first thing Karen notices is that her ears are ringing. The second thing is that someone is shoving at her shoulder.

“C’mon, Karen,” comes a voice, just audible through the ringing. “We have to get out of here. We have to get Iris out of here.”

_Iris._

The thought of her daughter spurs Karen into motion, memories returning quickly as she struggles to sit up. Her head spins, but she keeps going until she’s fully sitting up, her knees pulled to her chest.

“Easy, Chief,” O’Hara says, crouching next to her. Kare sees a new gash on her forehead. “You went down hard. Take a breather.”

“Iris,” Karen says, coughing. “Where-- what-- did the bomb go off?”

O’Hara glances away from her, looking towards the bars of the cell. Hazy smoke dulls the already dim room, but Karen quickly spies her daughter lying on the floor, unconscious and still bound.

_No. God, please, no._

Someone up there is looking out for her, because she soon sees the rise and fall of Iris’s chest. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that she’s locked in a cell inside a burning building. Karen gets to her feet and stumbles toward her daughter, gripping the metal bars even though they feel hot enough to burn her.

“Iris,” she calls. “Iris, can you hear me?”

She doesn’t get a response, but all of a sudden, she hears footsteps echoing down the hallway. “Jules!” Shawn calls out. “Jules, I found the gun you wanted!”

“Yes!” O’Hara turns to face Karen. “We can shoot the lock out.”

Karen takes the shotgun from Spencer as he approaches, Guster just behind him. Shawn immediately begins fussing over O’Hara, but she blocks them out, assessing the situation. Shooting out the lock could potentially shower Iris in nearly red-hot shrapnel, but she’s unresponsive; Karen has no way to warn her. And shooting out the lock is the only option, at the moment… thanks to the weapons purge upon their entry to the prison, neither O’Hara nor Guster has any sort of lock pick.

She opens her mouth to tell everyone to step back, but she’s interrupted by shouting and coughing. “Shawn!” Henry is clearly gasping for breath as he races through the smoke to his son. “Shawn, get out of here!”

“With pleasure, Dad,” Spencer answers. “Gus, Jules, c’mon.”

O’Hara pulls away as he tries to lead her up the hall. “You go, Shawn, we’ll be right behind you.”

“Jules, this place could come down at any minute!”

Guster nods emphatically. “Ordinarily it would be essentially fireproof, but the renovation materials are extremely flammable… and they’re currently what’s holding the building up.”

“All of you go,” Karen instructs. “Find a way out of here, and a boat. I’ll meet you on the outside.”

O’Hara gets a steely look on her face. “Karen, I won’t--”

“Get out of here, O’Hara. That’s an order.”

Her head detective nods and takes her fiance’s hand. All following Henry, the five of them take off down the corridor.

Karen wants to call out to Iris again, to try to wake her, to tell her to shield herself from the shrapnel. But the room is growing hotter and the smoke clouds thickly and she knows that there is no more time.

It takes her one shot to disable the lock. She lets the shotgun clatter to the floor and quickly pushes into the cell, untying Iris and pulling the gag from her mouth. If there were water, she might use the gag as a smoke mask, but there’s not a drop in sight. Once Iris is free, she picks her up and hurries down the hall. The feeling of her chest moving with breath reassures her, but not much.

Thankfully, Karen soon spies her people up ahead, climbing out into the dark night. As she hurries toward them, the building shifts loudly. 

_Fifty more yards, we’re almost out…_

As she watches, Spencer and Guster make it out. O’Hara, however, turns and spots her.

“Karen!”

“Go, Juliet,” Karen insists, the smoke burning her throat as she speaks. “I’m right behind you.”

O’Hara doesn’t listen, but honestly, Karen is grateful for that. It takes both of them to get Iris out of the building safely. No sooner have they rejoined the other four than the prison collapses behind them.

“Sound off,” Karen coughs, her eyes shut against the wave of hot air, smoke, and debris. She’s bent herself protectively over Iris, shielding her daughter with her own body.

“I’m alright,” O’Hara says, sounding breathless.

Spencer groans.

“He’s fine,” Guster reports. “I would like to never do that again, please.”

“I don’t know, there’s nothing like a near-death experience to get your blood pumping,” Woody says, sounding unfazed.

“Strode,” Henry rasps, “what the _hell?”_

Karen sighs in what would be relief if she weren’t cradling her unconscious daughter against her chest. “Alright, let’s move. There has to be a boat here somewhere.”

\---

The boat works for almost twenty minutes-- enough time to get them smack in the middle of the bay. Then, the engine cuts out.

Henry is driving the small motorboat, so he turns and bangs on the motor, then pulls the crank. When that doesn’t work, he lifts up the lid and peers inside. 

“We’re out of fuel.”

They all look around the small boat. It’s really more of a glorified canoe, which is to say, there are no compartments or drawers extra fuel might be hiding in. Thankfully, sitting in the corner, there’s a waterproof, two-way radio.

_Please have batteries,_ Karen thinks, hoping for a lucky break. Thankfully, when she twists the knob, it crackles to life. She finds the coast guard channel by memory, then begins a mayday message.

“Mayday, mayday, this is Chief Karen Vick of the San Francisco PD, requesting immediate rescue and emergency medical assistance. There are six adults including myself stranded on a small motorboat in the San Francisco Bay, and one teenage girl who is unconscious and unresponsive. I repeat, we need rescue and medical assistance.”

Standard procedure is to wait three minutes before repeating the call. Karen sits back and adjusts Iris in her arms, cradling her daughter against her chest. As she does so, she notices that the side of her head is sticky with blood, the color of which is hidden by her dark hair.

“Shit,” Karen mutters. Given time to actually examine Iris for wounds, she spies bruises on her wrists from the restraints, and sees that her ears are bleeding. “Shit.”

“Is there anything we can do?” O’Hara asks, and Karen knows she knows the answer, but she also knows the feeling of wanting desperately to act, to attempt to fix a problem, no matter how unfixable it is.

“We can wait,” Karen answers, and it is only years of self-discipline that keeps the bitter frustration out of her voice. After a minute of utter silence, she picks up the radio and starts the call again. “Mayday, mayday, this is Chief Karen Vick of the San Francisco PD…”

\---

Half an hour later, they’ve received no response.

O’Hara is shivering, whether from shock or from cold, Karen doesn’t know. Spencer has given her his jacket, but he and Guster had been the ones to shove off the boat, and thus are soaked from the knee down. Henry, in turn, has wrapped Shawn in his own coat, making Karen wish she could comfort Iris with something as simple as a hoodie. Even Woody seems to understand the gravity of the situation.

Karen shakes her head. What on earth has she gotten them into?

Her voice is hoarse from repeating the mayday call, but she reaches for the radio once more. This time, finally, someone is listening. Mere seconds after she finishes her call, a familiar voice responds.

_”Karen, it’s Barbara. We’re about fifteen minutes out from your location. We have emergency first aid equipment, can you tell us what we’re dealing with? Hypothermia? Concussions? Burns? Over.”_

Karen sighs in relief. If anyone can make this situation just a bit better, it’s her sister. “Hypothermia blankets wouldn’t be amiss, Barb, but…” she takes a deep, shuddering breath. “What we’re really worried about is a head injury. Spinal cord seems fine. Over.”

_”Karen, at the risk of clogging the channel…_ Barbara is uncharacteristically silent for a long moment. _”The unresponsive kid-- is it Iris?”_

She nods, before remembering that Barbara can’t see her. “Yes.” Her answer is short, her tone clipped. Anything more and she risks losing control of her careful, unflappable facade.

_”Damn.”_ Another long pause. _”Alright, we’re ten minutes out.”_

“Everyone ready?” Karen asks her motley crew, watching them shift and stretch. When Spencer accidentally bumps Woody with his elbow, the coroner jolts.

“I’m awake! What time is it?”

“Woody, were you asleep?” Shawn sounds incredulous.

“That depends. Do I get fired if I say yes?”

Karen sighs. “Look alive, team. And don’t fall out of the boat.”

Soon enough, the coast guard boat gets there. By unspoken agreement, Karen gets on first, handing Iris up to Barbara and then turning to help up the rest of her people. They all settle into the benches, shivering but relieved. Well, mostly relieved.

Karen brushes Iris’s hair away from her face, hating the sight of the blood smeared over her skin. “It’s alright, sweetheart,” she whispers. “I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay.”

To her surprise, Iris shifts weakly in her arms. “Mom.”

“I’m right here, Iris,” Karen says. “I’m right here. I’ll keep you safe.”

Iris’s face scrunches, confusion and pain contorting her features. “Mom?”

Karen kisses her forehead. “Don’t worry, Iris. You’re safe. Everything is going to be fine.”

Her voice cracks, and she abandons speaking in favor of holding Iris as close as she can. Barbara appears with a first aid kit but stands a few feet away until Karen nods.

“Let’s see if we can get you cleaned up, then,” she murmurs, opening the kit. Even as Iris drifts back into unconsciousness, Karen and Barbara work carefully, cleaning her wounds and bandaging her up. It won’t save her, not if she’s hurt as badly as they fear. But it’s a start.

“Anyone else hurt?” Barbara asks. 

Juliet might have a concussion. Henry had taken a hit to the knee during the fight in Alcatraz. Shawn and Gus are slightly hypothermic.

Woody is concerned about recurring wrist pain-- not from the fight, he’s been having it since last week.

Once everyone has been treated, mugs of hot chocolate are brought around, made possible by a plug-in kettle and swiss miss cocoa mix. 

“Want some?” Barbara asks, holding out a mug.

Karen shakes her head. “No.”

“Let me rephrase that… you were somehow involved in the burning of Alcatraz, you’re probably going into shock, and you’ve absolutely got a long night ahead of you. Drink the damn cocoa.”

Karen takes the mug, looks her sister straight in the eye, and takes a single sip.

“Fine, then,” grumbles Barbara. “Be like that.”

\---

Karen texts Richard as soon as she’s seated in the waiting room. _Call me._ She really doesn’t have the energy to update him by text.

As a matter of fact, as the minutes tick by, she finds herself lacking the energy to do anything. O’Hara is under observation, which means Spencer is with her. Gus and Woody disappear in search of food. Karen finds herself alone with Henry, who sighs and turns to face her.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Henry, when have I ever wanted to talk about anything?”

“It might help,” he offers.

Her hands curl into fists; she just wants to be left alone. “The only thing that will _help_ is knowing beyond doubt that Iris is okay.”

“She will be, Karen,” Henry says, and she envies how calm he sounds. “She’s strong, like you.”

Before she can answer that, his phone rings. “Maddie,” he mutters. He glances quickly back at Karen. “I have to take this.”

“Of course,” she replies, and he hurries off, leaving her to think about what he’d said. Henry, like so many people, sees her as unyielding, confident, and powerful, an image she’s carefully cultivated over the years. Like he’d said, people think she’s strong.

Karen doesn’t feel very strong at the moment.

\---

She almost starts crying when she’s finally let in to see Iris.

Her daughter is motionless in the bed, her color not much better than it had been in the boat. There’s a bandage wrapped around her head and an IV line in her hand. Her pulse is slow and her breathing is shallow.

Karen takes Iris’s hand, almost wincing at how cold her fingers are. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

She should never have gone into the field on this case. She’d followed Shawn and Gus to the asylum for the thrill of it, for the chance to hone long-unused skills she didn’t want to lose. If she had only done her job, had stayed in her comfortable office and let her people do all of the work, Iris might not have gotten hurt.

But Karen Vick has never been that person.

Knowing that she would never have made a different choice only worsens her guilt. Honestly, had she known Iris would be taken, she would only have fought harder to find and catch McGoldrick. It’s what she does-- she fights for the people she cares about, the people she loves. Now, however, that’s only made things worse.

“I love you, Iris,” she murmurs, stroking her cheek. “You’re gonna be okay, yeah? I’m staying right here with you until you wake up. I’m right here.”

Iris doesn’t respond, but then, Karen hadn’t expected her to. The doctors aren’t sure she’ll wake up anytime soon… actually, though they’d said it tactfully, they aren’t sure she’ll wake up at all.

Karen doesn’t think she’d be able to handle that.

She spends a good forty-five minutes trying not to think about what might happen, or what had happened, but she keeps circling back to what she could’ve done differently, how she could’ve saved Iris. As a mother, she’s supposed to keep her daughter safe. As the chief of police, she’s supposed to keep her city safe. Tonight, she’s failed at both.

Her phone ringing startles her out of the cloud of guilt, but the caller id brings the lump right back to her throat.

“Richard,” she answers, her tone flat and numb.

_”Karen.”_ He sounds a bit panicky. _”Karen, my plane just landed, I got your text but you didn’t-- you didn’t say anything…”_

“I didn’t want to explain by text,” she admits. “Iris is… alive. But there was-- there was and explosion, and Rich, I couldn’t-- I couldn’t--” her throat closes and she can’t manage to finish her sentence.

_”I’m on my way,”_ he says. _”Where are you?”_

“Bay Area General Hospital, third floor,” she tells him. “Room 385.”

_”Alright, I’ll be there as soon as I can. I love you, Karen.”_

She’s seized by the foolish, teenage desire to ask him to stay on the phone, to spend just a few more minutes drawing comfort from his voice. Still, she swallows hard and gets a hold of herself. “I love you too. See you soon.”

\---

Karen has been a pillar of strength, a constant, a reassurance to a lot of people for a long time. Specifically tonight, she’s spent hours refusing to panic, acting calmly, giving orders and pretending everything is fine. 

She doesn’t have the energy to do that anymore.

Richard wraps her in his arms as soon as he sets foot in the hospital room, and Karen stops pretending. Her cool, collected facade slips away and she practically goes limp in his arms, finally letting herself cry.

“Oh, Karen,” he sighs. “Karen, it’s alright. She’ll be alright.”

“It’s my fault,” Karen mumbles, tears still streaming down her face. “I shouldn’t have gotten involved in the case… I should’ve kept her safe…”

“You did keep her safe, love. You got her here, didn’t you?” Richard holds her tight, and she’s never needed his arms around her more. “She’ll be okay.”

“She might not be.” Karen takes a shaky breath. “She might not wake up, Rich, and if she doesn’t, it’s my fault.”

“No, Karen.” He pulls back to look at her. “If anything happens, it’s only the fault of the bastards who took her. You saved her, you hear me? Iris is alive now because of you.”

She sighs heavily, leaning into her husband’s chest. To her, it still seems like it’s her fault, but she does always tend to take the blame, even if it’s not on her. “Richard,” she murmurs, tilting her head to look at Iris, “what are we going to do?”

\---

When Karen had said she wasn’t leaving Iris’s side, she’d meant it. It’s been two full days, and she’s rarely moved from the cot the hospital had given her beside the bed. Richard had been reluctant to leave as well, so O’Hara had ultimately been the one to bring them supplies. Karen makes a mental note to increase her christmas bonus.

The doctors are more optimistic about Iris’s chances now, though they warn that they don’t know how long she’ll remain comatose. Karen is willing to wait as long as it takes.

It’s the longest wait of her life, but two and a half days after Alcatraz, Iris wakes up.

Karen is sitting right next to her when she wakes, with Richard beside her. Iris between the both of them, and ends up reaching for Karen, since she’s closest.

“Mom,” she says hoarsely. “Dad.”

Karen blinks back tears, smiling wide. “Hey, Iris. I’m right here.”

Richard, next to her, looks equally overjoyed. “Hey, baby girl,” he says softly.

Iris, instead of looking happy to see them, frowns. “Mom, Dad.” She tugs the hand the Karen is holding free, and rubs at her ears. “My ears are ringing,” she says, her voice getting louder. Her eyes are wide, panic visible on her face. “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear.”

Karen keeps herself calm, smiling gently at her daughter. She feels Richard gripping her arm, too tight, surely trying not to let his own fear show. With one hand, she presses the ‘call nurse’ button on the side of the bed, and with the other, she reaches carefully for Iris. “You’re alright,” she says, brushing her hair away from her face.

“Mom?” Iris is almost yelling now. “Mom, Dad, I can’t hear, what’s going on?”

Karen keeps stroking her daughter’s face. Richard manages to act, too, and she sees him take Iris’s hand and squeeze it three times-- a silent ‘I love you’.

“Karen,” he says to her, low and quiet, as though Iris might still overhear him, “what’s wrong? Why can’t she hear?”

“I don’t know, Rich,” she answers, matching his volume and tone. “I told you, there was an explosion, I covered my ears, but she couldn’t, maybe-- maybe something happened…”

A nurse comes hurrying into the room, clipboard in hand. “Is something wrong?” 

“She can’t hear,” Karen says, managing to look away from Iris long enough to hold a conversation. “She’s talking but she says her ears are ringing and she can’t hear.”

The nurse nods and moves to the other side of Iris’s bed, crouching next to her. “Hi, Iris,” she says, speaking up. “Can you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying right now?”

Iris seems even more confused by this, turning back to Karen and Richard. “Mom, what’s happening? I can’t hear anything, my ears are ringing, what’s going on?”

Karen feels utterly helpless. She doesn’t even try to say anything in return, but sits in the chair by the bed as her knees more or less give out. She wants to tell Iris that it will be okay, that she loves her, she’s going to keep her safe, but clearly, no words will help right now. She can’t do anything except try her hardest to hold back her own fear as she bends over and kisses her daughter gently on the forehead.

_I love you. It’s going to be okay._

\---

Iris is scared. She can see her parents, can see that they’re talking, but she can’t hear anything except a ringing in her ears. Her mom is talking to the doctors, her back to Iris. Maybe the doctors know what’s wrong. Maybe they can help her. Iris wants badly to know what they’re saying, but all she can hear is the loud, constant, ringing…

Her dad squeezes her hand again, three times, just like he does when he drops her off at school and doesn’t want to make a scene. One-two-three. I-love-you. Iris looks up at him, holding his hand tight.

“Dad,” she says, trying to be loud, loud enough to hear her own voice. “Dad, I’m scared.”

He scrubs a hand over his face, then runs it through his hair. His hand is still in hers but his eyes are everywhere else, darting around the room. Then, he lets go of her, quickly rifling through a mess on a table next to him. He grabs a paper from there and a pen from his pocket, and scribbles a message. _Don’t be scared. Your mom and I are right here. The doctors are gonna get this all figured out._ He shows it to her with an encouraging grin, squeezing her hand again.

It doesn’t really make her feel any better. “Why can’t I hear? I can’t hear anything!”

Richard sighs and lifts their hands, still holding hers. He moves their hands to her throat, so that Iris’s knuckles are pressed gently against her voice box. Then, he gives a ‘go on, then’ nod, and Iris understands.

“Now I can feel it,” she says aloud, and indeed, she feels the words vibrate under her hand. It helps her figure out how loud she is. “Am I talking normally? Why can’t I hear?”

Her dad lets go of her hand to reach for the paper again. _You’re being a little loud, but that’s okay. You mom says the explosion might have hurt your ears._

Iris starts shaking as she remembers being stuck in Alcatraz. The ropes had chafed her wrists and the bomb had been so close to her and she’d been so, so scared…

A hand on her forehead startles her out of her memories, and she jerks from the touch, feeling her breathing speed up. She looks up and sees her mom, and she reaches for her hand, but her heart is racing and she feels like she’s still trapped and she can’t _hear._

“Mom,” she says, as loud as she can, desperate to hear something other than the ringing. “Mom, help, what’s happening, I can’t hear, my head hurts!”

She keeps struggling, looking frantically back and forth between her parents. Her mom’s lips are moving and her dad is rubbing her arm softly but she doesn’t know what’s going on, she can’t even hear herself scream…

Iris doesn’t even notice the nurse changing the IV bag, but before she knows it, she’s sinking into unconsciousness once again. Just as before, her mother is the last thing she sees.

“Mom…”

\---

Over the next day, Iris undergoes many, many tests. As far as the doctors can tell, there isn’t any brain damage, thank god. That only means more testing, more time that Karen and Richard can’t be with Iris.

After a while, Richard goes home to shower and grab fresh clothes, and when there’s no change in the half-hour he’s gone, Karen leaves, too. Not even twenty minutes later, she hurries back into the room, her hair not even dry.

“What did I miss?”

“That was insanely fast,” Richard comments, looking up from his iPad. “Uh, the docs are still looking at Iris, but I met yet another audiologist, and the tentative diagnosis is profound sensorineural hearing loss.”

Karen frowns. “Profound means she can’t hear at all, right? Is it treatable?”

Shaking his head, Rich holds out his iPad. “I’ve been doing some research. Sensorineural hearing loss is in the inner ear, so it really can’t be helped with anything.”

She takes a deep breath, remembering how Iris had freaked out when she’d woken, not just the first time, but every time since. At least they’ve only had to sedate her once.

“Well, it’s only been a few days since the explosion,” she ventures, her voice conveying a calmness she doesn’t feel. “She might regain her hearing, right?”

Richard shrugs. “Apparently the tests they’re doing now have something to do with that. And you’d know better than I would, anyway.”

Karen has known a few officers who had lost their hearing from explosions. One wears hearing aids. The other three are completely deaf, and had retired. No one she knows has ever fully recovered.

“Let’s hope the tests bring good news,” she sighs.

\---

Iris sits in the hospital bed, picking at a fraying thread in the blanket. There’s a lap table right in front of her, with a pad of paper and a pen, a pudding cup, and a bottle of apple juice. She hasn’t touched any of it.

She’s supposed to get out of the hospital this afternoon, once the ear doctor-- auto-ologist? Her mom had written out the word for her, but she doesn’t remember-- gives them an official diagnosis. Even without the doctor telling her, Iris knows it’s not going to be good. She’d heard almost nothing during the tests, and when they’d shown her the graphs, they hadn’t looked good, despite the fact that Iris didn’t quite understand what they showed. She can’t hear anymore, and she doesn’t know if she’s going to get better.

A gentle hand on her arm draws her attention away from the blanket, and she looks up at her dad. She doesn’t bother with words; speaking without hearing her voice only makes her feel worse.

Richard grabs the pudding and holds it up, offering to her. When he speaks he doesn’t bother to write it out, but she figures it out, given context.

“Chocolate pudding?”

Iris shakes her head.

He sighs and sets it down, reaching for the paper. _If you don’t eat it, I will._

She knows from the way he grins and winks afterwards that he means it as a joke, but she’s not hungry, so she shrugs and pushes it toward him.

He seems saddened by that, and reaches for the paper again. _You need to eat something, honey. Did you eat breakfast this morning?_

Iris shakes her head again, finally picking up her own pen. _I’m not hungry,_ she writes.

Her mom and dad look at each other, and they look so worried that she considers trying to eat the pudding anyway. Before she can, the door opens, and one of the doctors comes in, his smile bright as he rubs hand sanitizer over his hands.

She goes back to picking at the thread as he talks to her parents; if she doesn’t watch people have conversations, she can almost pretend that nobody’s talking, that she’d be able to hear anyone who was. The ringing in her ears still reminds her something is wrong, but she’s slowly getting used to it.

When someone taps her shoulder again, Iris looks up to find her mom smiling gently, though her expression is sad. She holds out a note. _We can all go home today, Iris. The doctor says you’re all good,_

Iris suppresses the urge to tear the note to shreds, though she glares angrily enough to set it alight. “I am _not_ ‘all good’!” she yells, feeling her voice crack from lack of use. “I still can’t hear!”

The doctor writes something on his clipboard, then turns it around and holds it out to her. _There’s a chance your hearing could return, but even if it does, it would happen very slowly over the next few weeks. There’s no need for you to stay in the hospital the whole time-- that wouldn’t be fun for anyone. The plan is for you and your family to go home, but you’ll come back for weekly check-ups with me, and we’ll track your progress. Does that sound like a good plan?_

Iris huffs in frustration, but she knows she can’t do anything but wait and see if she’ll hear again. She wipes angrily at her eyes, trying not to cry. When her mother takes her hand, she looks up, meeting the eyes of all of the grown-ups in the room. “Okay,” she says finally, holding her hand to her throat to be sure she’s spoken. “I guess I do want to go home.”

\---

That night, Karen finally sleeps in her own bed for the first time since Alcatraz. She pulls the blankets up over her shoulders and gets comfortable using Richard as a pillow, but she knows she’s far from sleep. “It’s my fault,” she whispers, swallowing hard.

“It’s not your fault, Karen,” Richard tells her, rubbing her shoulder. “You kept her safe. Iris is here now because you saved her.”

“I shouldn’t have let her get taken in the first place.”

“You were doing your best, babe! You were trying to help, to do the right thing. You’re the one who told me that there’s no winning against psychos like those.”

“What happens now, Rich?” she asks, trying not to cry. “I’m just as happy as you that Iris is alive; it doesn’t matter to me if she can hear or not, but you saw how upset she was. It’s been, like four days, and she just seems so…” she shakes her head. “Crushed. So broken.”

“Hey, we’ll figure it out,” he tells her. “Give her time. Whether she gets her hearing back or not, it’ll take time to adjust.”

“You’re right,” Karen sighs. “I know you’re right. I just want her to be okay.”

“She is okay,” he reminds her. “She’s alive, and healthy. The head wound wasn’t too bad. Honestly, this is probably the best outcome we could’ve gotten.”

She rolls over, her head now resting on his chest. “The best outcome,” she murmurs, too many others flashing through her head. “God, we got so lucky.”

Richard kisses her head softly. “We did. I got both of you back. You all got out alive.”

Karen spends a lot of time thinking about worse case scenarios; it’s basically her job. Even after the fact, her mind tends to linger on what might have gone wrong. Tonight, though, she needs to look on the bright side-- Iris is alive, and the criminals are dead. Everyone survived the whole catastrophe.

_Richard’s right,_ she thinks, her eyes drooping. _We got lucky._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love comments and kudos, and you can find me at trixiesfranklin on tumblr if you wanna say hi!


End file.
